Movie review: ‘The Incredibles 2’ is not-so-super

Al Alexander More Content Now

Wednesday

Jun 13, 2018 at 10:01 AMJun 13, 2018 at 10:01 AM

Wonder Woman has nothing on Elastigirl when it comes to kicking butts in the male-dominated world of superherodom. She’s strong, sexy and smart as a whip. And as voiced by Holly Hunter in Pixar’s long-awaited “Incredibles” sequel, she’s refreshingly humble; a gal who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to get it — as long as it doesn’t infringe too much on her main role as Mom. And did I mention that bountiful booty? Eat your heart out, Kim Kardashian. Elastigirl was working that thing long before anyone ever heard of you. Ah, those were the days!

Yes, life was a lot different back in the fall of 2004. The only superhero franchises around were Batman and Spidey. So Brad Bird didn’t really have to strain in devising a satirical send-up of the genre when he wrote and directed the Oscar-winning “The Incredibles.” But now the market is saturated with these derivative packages of noise and mayhem, something as simple as “The Incredibles” looks absolutely prehistoric. And that’s exactly how “Incredibles 2” plays. It’s just like every other hunk of clunk out there.

It’s good that Bird is back with his keen wit and marvelous observational skills, but he’s overmatched. He’s also a tad bit lazy. Like a lot of us, he didn’t see a need for a sequel. But the accountants at Disney certainly did, and so he was given little choice but to go along. And it shows. At times, his script — and particularly his actions scenes — feel like bits he excised from his brilliant work as director of “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol,” still the best entry in that illustrious series. Even his idea to give “Incredibles 2” a decidedly feminist bent by moving Elastigirl, aka Helen, to the fore seems creaky in the wake of last year’s mega hit, “Wonder Woman.”

Still, I can’t say I wasn’t mildly entertained. The artwork is dazzling and the characters rich and fascinating, particularly Craig T. Nelson’s Bob, the patriarch of the Parr clan forced into a sudden life of domesticity after circumstances send Helen out into the workforce. Call it the emasculation of Bob, a type-A macho dude freaked by the idea of changing baby Jack-Jack’s poopy diapers, nursing daughter, Violet (Sarah Vowell), through her forlorn love life and trying to keep her bratty younger brother, Dash (Huck Milner), from growing up too fast.

It’s great to watch Bob seethe, sitting in front of the TV, watching Helen grab all the headlines, as she saves the day seemingly every day in helping create better public relations as part of a plan to make “Supers” legal again. It’s the idea of Supers fan Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk), a mega industrialist, who along with his shadowy in-the-shadows sister, Evelyn (Catherine Keener), is pushing the idea with a suspicious fervor.

That’s pretty much the plot, as Bird oscillates between Bob’s fight for sanity back at the borrowed homestead (You’ll remember the Parrs lost their own home in a conflagration at the end of the last film.) and Helen’s many exploits, from stopping a runaway train to navigating cocktail parties with the press. Might Elastigirl be stretching herself too thin? And might Bob be internalizing too much resentment? Right on both counts. And that’s the most charming aspect of “Incredibles 2,” as the harried parents learn the hard way that marriage is a partnership; and alone they aren’t nearly as powerful as they are together.

I also got an unexpected kick out of tiny Jack-Jack, stealing scene after scene discovering his array of superpowers, which I’ll let you discover for yourself because revealing them would spoil so much of the fun. Just know that when crazed fashionista Edna Mode (Brad Bird) spends a night babysitting him, it’s the movie at its peak. There are also at least a dozen other great bits, including a handful of veiled political jabs involving body cams and liberal uses of the term “illegals.” The problem is that they don’t add up to a satisfying whole like in the last film. Bird’s script also feels drawn out and often gets repetitive, making for a movie unable to meet lofty expectations. And why so little of Samuel L. Jackson’s irrepressible Frozone?

At least Bird proves that animated fight scenes can be just as dull, incoherent and perfunctory as the ones in the Marvel Universe. Ditto for the predictability factor. You’re always one step ahead of what’s on the screen. And as is the case with the Deavor siblings, you know exactly how it will all end. Those, plus the movie’s surprising dearth of laugh-out-loud humor, detract from what should be, well, incredible. It’s not. It’s merely OK. But Elastigirl? I won’t kid you; I’m madly in love. She not just incredible, she’s irresistible.